Cougars play part well
PULLMAN – At halftime Friday night, Eastern Washington coach Kirk Earlywine wasn’t discouraged or disappointed in how his team was playing.
After all, the visiting Eagles had only eight healthy bodies, weren’t shooting the ball particularly well and yet they only trailed the nation’s 10th-ranked team by 12 – in front of a sellout crowd of 10,215.
Then the second half started.
Earlywine, his players and the Friel Court crowd got to experience why the Cougars are considered one of the country’s best teams.
Riding the broad shoulders of 6-foot-10, 270-pound center Aron Baynes and a defense that limited Eastern to four baskets over the first 15 minutes of the second half, WSU went on a 10-0 run en route to a 68-41 blowout in the first season-opening sellout in Beasley Coliseum history.
“They’re as good as I thought they were,” said Earlywine, in his first year on the EWU bench after a long career as an assistant around the nation. “I think there are only 15 – well, less than 20 – teams in the country that can realistically look at San Antonio and the Final Four as a goal, and they’re one of them.”
WSU coach Tony Bennett won’t go that far after one game, though he did concede his Cougars played better than they had in an exhibition win over Lewis-Clark State last Sunday – at least after halftime.
“In that first half I thought there was a stretch where we were a little stagnant, in terms of ball movement and body movement,” said Bennett, noting WSU shot just 44 percent before halftime. “We came out and got the ball swung, we attacked a little more and they cut harder off screens. … It certainly opened things up.
“Then Aron got position, sealed them and those are high-percentage shots.”
Leading by the aforementioned 31-19 at intermission, WSU scored the first 10 points, six of them from Baynes – he finished with a game-high 15 points – and all 10 inside. Eastern, 15-14 last season, never threatened again.
“It wasn’t necessarily an emphasis,” to get the ball inside, according to senior guard Derrick Low, who finished with 14 points. “(Bennett) didn’t really say anything about that. We just wanted to get the ball moving around.
“In the first half we found ourselves standing around and keeping the ball on one side of the court too long. He wanted us to pass the ball – get the defense shifted and then look inside.”
It worked. WSU shot 56 percent in the second half. Senior forward Robbie Cowgill was perfect after halftime, finishing 5 of 6 from the floor, with 13 points and a game-high seven rebounds. The Cougars, 26-8 a year ago despite being outrebounded over the season, had a 34-26 edge on the boards.
Part of that is because Eastern isn’t big – Brandon Moore (6-9) and Matt Brunell (6-8) are the only healthy Eagles taller than 6-4 – or deep – depleted by injuries, only eight players suited.
“We played eight guys tonight and five of them were playing their first Division I game and it looked like it,” Earlywine said. “I don’t think it was the crowd, necessarily, as much as it was the Cougars. Nobody from the crowd came down and guarded us. And nobody came down from the crowd and got a rebound.”
Eastern was led by the 11 points from Serbian Milan Stanojevic, a junior college transfer who hit 3 of 6 3-point attempts.
The Eagles’ bench was bolstered by the appearance of point guard Adris DeLeon, a transfer from College of Southern Idaho who was declared eligible Friday.
DeLeon wasn’t much of help in the first half, however, missing all four of his shots and turning the ball over twice. He finished 2 of 11 from the floor.
He wasn’t alone. Eastern shot less than 30 percent from the floor and its point total was the lowest in a season opener for a WSU opponent since Whitworth scored 34 in 1948.
“They were obviously at a size disadvantage, and in the second half we took advantage of that with Aron,” Bennett said. “When you have a mismatch (like that), you have to take advantage of it.”
Just like a top 10 team should.